"You get involved with Suzuki families?! That big family company?"
"Yes, darling. I can't let anyone be kidnapped by lowlife, you know that?"
"Oh, boy. I knew this adventure of your would be much more complicated than intended."
"We knew already that i'm a danger magnet, Ena. That's why you love me in the first place, right?"
"But you're forty-three now! You're no longer young! We have three childrens to feed, and-"
"And you know that we promised to die in the rip of old age, so you know that i won't force myself to do something too dangerous for me... at least without planning and support." I heard that woman sighed.
"And promise me to keep doing that, darling, because i won't approve of you going lone gunner out there!"
"Big promise, ma'am." I sighed. My 'wife' was turned out to be much calmer than any girl here, but only because of age, and she's still as argumentative as ever. At the very least, she considered and respected me to be the head of the household, so compromises can be done on my behalf.
"And promise me, don't do anything dangerous again, right?"
"Well if you say so; I'm planning to spend the rest of the week visiting school and so instead, just like what they asked me to. Can't promise if my earlier cases called me, though."
"At least you promised to try. See you next month, Honey!"
"Missed you too."
And with that, the call ended.
I took a breath as i'm only five minutes away from my next destination.
The Elementary School of Beika.
-b-
"So kids, let's greet our special guest, Detective Andy."
"Hello, Mr. Andy!" Says the kids as they bowed to me.
"Hi, everyone!" I returned their gesture, "So...anyone know me already? Except Conan, of course."
"Eh? You already know him, Conan-kun?"
I could see that sarcastic smile of the Cool Kid before he chirped like those innocent kid, "Yes, Ayumi! Mr. Andy beaten Detective Kogoro in his case challenge before! He even mocked Oji-san with his Sleeping Sleuth act! You're even better than him, Mr. Andy!"
"Please, Conan-kun. I'm just lucky yesterday. If the case involved any clues that require greater knowledge of Japanese culture, i'd surely lose."
"You're quiet humble, sir!" Says the teacher. Should i mention to her that she looked a lot like Sato? Well, maybe i'll talk to Kobayashi-Sensei about it later. Or maybe not, since she might be bugged about it a lot earlier. "Quiet rare to see a humble genius detective out there."
"I always tried my best to be humble, sensei."
"See, Edogawa-kun? It's not hard to pretend that you are not the smartest kid out there once in a while."
The class bursted in laughter with Ai's comment about Conan's smug acts that tends to pop often when he hangs out with the other kids. I could see him mouthing 'look who's talking' at Haibara.
Or should i say, Shiho Miyano aka Sherry?
"Okay, that's enough, class!" Said Kobayashi-sensei, "Now everyone, what do you want to ask-"
"Can you tell us how you solved the case?"
Soon, the class was filled with chattering of little children who were in agreement. I also could see Conan smirked, must be thinking how i would explain it since i fell asleep by his tranquilizer dart.
Oh, i might be showing him how much i know, just like how i know that he was Shinichi Kudo...
-d-
"..And that's how i managed to stop him from hurting anyone else."
"That's horrible! To think that the old man really wanted to become a better person..."
"Ah! But without him, the real culprit might already hurt the others!"
"I think the old man already sort of redeemed himself..."
As i looked over to Shinichi, i had to stop myself from snickering; He was terrified!
"All right, Kiddos! That's enough!" I said as raised my voice to calm them down. Good thing that Kobayashi-sensei managed to do exactly that. "Now," I walked to where Ayumi and Conan sat. I wonder why he called Ayumi Amy, though. "I want to say something important: Genius detectives from literature, aren't meant to be anyone role model."
"Eeeh? WHY?"
"Yeah! It's shocking to heard that came from another brilliant detective!"
"Anyone've read The Sign of the Four?" Only Conan the one who raised his arm, "Sherlock Holmes, well...he's an eccentric who used...illegal substances because normal situation is boring. He's also a jerk who reacted negatively to Watson's writing about their first adventure because it contains some dramatic writing, even though Watson wrote that specifically to appease Holmes's ego, and already tried to make anything that's not related to the case as simply sideline. Also, he was so dedicated to science and so that he didn't know anything about culture and literature."
"Ew! He sounds like an antisocial man!"
"I don't want to be like Sherlock anymore..."
Needless to say, Conan looked like he was not pleased.
"Well, he's not the one who telling his adventure, after all...but you can still look at Sherlock's ideals, such as his determination to search for the truth, his willingness to do cases without getting paid, and of course, his brilliant mind!"
-d-
"Thank you for your time, Mr. Andy!"
With that, i left the room, but not without taking a last peek at the room. Seemed like Haibara whispered something to Conan, must be about how fucked up he was now.
Kinda strange since Haibara's even more discreet since she was Terrified of the B.O., even when it's simply Ran or the others, but i assumed it was simply because her sense of B.O. was not tingling with me around her and she was kinda okay with it since i'm simply one of the smarter people out there.
And on a bench, where i was drinking my soda, there was a call from Inspector Megure.
"Yes, Inspector?"
"Our instincts were right: We just found several riddles and puzzles again, right in locations that you assumed from the riddles. Good job, Andy."
"Thank you, sir. So you need my help again?"
"Not for now. These riddles were Japanese oriented, some were very obscure and maybe only known by the locales, so i don't think you would be much of help. We'll contact you again when we need you, though."
"Ok, sir. Keep me in touch."
"I'll do as soon as they managed to decipher it. God, how i wish one of the Kudo to here. I just hope Mouri can showed us his miracle again, but he's somehow much less reliable when he's awake. It's like heaven and earth the difference of his intelligence is."
"So you prefer it when he's slumped and slurred his deductions?"
"Well, if his earlier deduction sounded stupid, then yes. I can't tell you how much ridicules he'd endure if public know that his statements in police meant shit since he didn't know anything about his deductions. So much that we could only use the guilty's own words against them after they admitted their murders. You won't believe how many people who handle papers here already make conspiracy jokes about how he forgot everything he said on sleep. Things like his llama doctor fed him amnesiac nanomachines that would react whenever he used his brain for something useful." Wut. "But sometimes his brilliance came without the need of him fainting... I don't know what's actually in his head."
"Hmm..." I pretended to thinking about this situation. Of course, i already knew what's happening, but i couldn't tell, could i? "Perhaps it has something with his subconsciousness. Is something happened during those situation when he deduced it while wide awake?"
"Now that you mention it, that one case happened with his old Judo buddies, then another one happened when one of his old friend who happened to be an actress appeared and tried to hide the real culprit which happened to be his father..."
"So it's something personal."
"Eh, nani?"
"Kogoro...he does have brilliant mind consciously after all, but he needed to have any personal motifs to make it happen. Otherwise, he'll be too boastful of his own intellect to even do anything remotely smart." I concluded my 'deduction' about the mystery behind Kogoro's bipolar intelligence that made people scratched their head.
"I guess you're right...but what'll we do with it? I don't know if we can call anyone else. Supervisor Hattori might be able to, but the mystery is still not covering his province by now, so it's out of his hand. And i don't want to look too desperate since it could be negative on our PR."
"Just say something about me challenged him back this time," I firmly suggested, knowing that even if it did jackshit to his brain, there's still Conan out there that could give him important clues for him, "Kogoro already had something against me, so it would be personal for him."
"Ah, but is it okay? I know you don't want to look any worse to him and wish to be sort of friend, so..."
"It's okay. He doesn't look like a person who would admit his wrongdoings overnight out of pride, anyway." Yeah. Like wife, like husband. Good thing that Ran's a much better in forgiving people than both combined. God know how long it would take for Shinichi to make her forgive him if the apple fall not far from the tree.
"I think i can agree with that. See you later, Meitantei!"
"'Bye."
And not long after that, another call happened, this time from unknown caller. I decided to answer it.
"Hello?"
"Finally! You know how hard is it to find you, huh?"
"...Pardon me?" I asked incredulously since this call sounded like something from a grandpa with dementia that simply called a random number out of nowhere.
"Oh yeah! Where's my manner? My name is Jirokichi Suzuki, the General Adviser of Suzuki private company! And there are three reasons for why i called you, Detective Andy!"
"...Okay." Wow. That was fast.
"First, i want to thank you for saved my niece from being kidnapped by these random lowlife thugs. I don't want to imagine what could happened to her if you hadn't stop them."
"I simply did what's right, sir."
"And second, i found that your background is very...interesting. Very rare for detectives to be a magician as well, especially the super durable shock magic type. Say, are you occupied right now?"
"If my intuition right, you're going to need my help to catch Kaito Kid, right?"
"Nice catch! You're really a detective raptor, the bird of prey who could tell by the slightest smell! Finally, that petty thief won't have a chance to escape from me! Hahahahaha!"
"Eheheh..." I didn't like the sound of working with this egomaniac...
"Oh. And third...could you explains...your trick to Sonoko?"
"Explain what?"
"DON'T TRY TO PLAY THE FOOL! Do you know how hard is it to explain to her that the vengeful spirit that knocked out and used her to explain the murders was a ruse by you? Oh, you're so lucky that she hasn't tell this to anyone, or else you'll..."
I already blocked him out by the time he started to rambling. I simply said yes to whatever he said, of course while i half-heartedly listened so i won't agreed to something stupid.
-dd-
Okay. That was quiet hard.
"I thought you're invulnerable to pain, Andy?"
"I don't think i can convince your niece if i did not flinched when she scratched my face. She'd "
"Oh, i see. Well, good thinking, boy!"
"Anyway, what's the plan?" I said as i took a seat.
"This is the interesting part: I already created a new invention for us: The perfect disguise!"
"So we're going to mimic people like Kaito Kid? How's that going to help, if i may ask?"
"Confusion, of course! The masks can give us the advantage of Kid being shocked by whoever he disguised up, turned out to be 'awake and well', when in reality it's us! It's the perfect strategy to fight him off!"
"That's good, but how about his tricks?"
"Eh?"
"The tricks. We're talking about a man who hold a quiet literal bag of tricks and can pull stuffs at ease. Hell, i don't even know how he could mimic voices so perfectly!"
"That's where you came from, Andy." Said the old man as he smirked at me and caressed the jewel-of-paradise, the very colorful new bait for Kaito Kid. Like it's name, it was just as beautiful as those rare birds," Even if you're an entirely different kind of magician, you still know a bit about magic and stuffs. And with your very high perception, you could call and avoided any tricks he'd pull. Even you might catch him off guard with your resistance against his sleeping gas. I'd say this is a quiet perfect plan myself! Oh, i can see the epic biography already; Jirokichi and his helpful squad: The Most Epic Anti-Heist moment in History! MUAHAHAHAHA!"
"Rough on the edges, but very sound." I agreed, although i knew that something this simple wouldn't be working against Kaito Kuroba. He simply had too much tricks to pull, some of which were simply impossible no matter how you look at it. Just like Ran's punching power and my durability, "Says," I continues, "Who's this second new member that you said earlier."
"Just a very curious girl. Very smart, from what i read by her academic reports. But i don't know if she really would be useful outside of her connections with authority. Still, i think she could learn one or two from us."
"I see. Anything else?"
"Well, she might looked a little familiar, so don't be surprised."
"Familiar?"
"I'm here!"
That cheerful, childish, and yet still familiar voice...
It can't be.
"Hello?"
It was Ran Mouri: Flat-Chested-but-still-pretty edition.
"Aoko's ready to help you catching that petty thief, so say something already!"
"Um...welcome to the club?" I simply smiled at the bad-tempered girl in front of me.
-dd-
OHOHOHOHOHO! Looks like i'm going to be involved with Kid after all! Would i succeed or not? And how Aoko would've fit into this story? Find out next, on Case Solved!
Also, i couldn't help myself to say that; Aoko's basically what happened when Ran's drawn to be less gorgeous and more cute in fashion.